This blog used to be called EDL Extra. I was a supporter (neither a member nor a leader) of the EDL until 2012. This blog has retained the old web address.****************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

Thursday, 15 August 2013

Mehdi Hasan Smears Douglas Murray & Robert Spencer

Just in case you can't see that message above clearly. Here it is:

"You know what's hilarious? I'm on video saying all non muslims are
animals and below Muslims, yet I still have my £65000 per year job!" -
Mehdi Hasan

A couple of weeks ago Mehdi Hasan (above) – who seems to be the only
spokesman Muslims and Islam have in the UK (apart from the BBC's very
own 'Mo' Ansar) – wrote an article for The Huffington Post in which he said that the British writer and conservative, Douglas Murray,
"tried to smear" him. Fourteen words later Mehdi Hasan attempts to
smear Douglas Murray with the word "neocon"! I'm not saying that saying
someone is a neocon is a smear. I'm saying that Hasan takes it to be a
smear and hopes his readers do too.Virtually the entire article, "Douglas Murray, the EDL, Dodgy Videos and Me", is based on the argument – if it is an argument! – that if Douglas Murray supports the EDL in any way
(whether he does so or not is not my concern here), then he's a
'fascist' and a 'racist' and therefore can't be trusted and shouldn't
even be given any air-time. That EDL-Murray connection is rammed downed
our throats repeatedly in this piece. But that's no surprise because
when anyone criticises Islam (or Muslims as Muslims), Leftists and
Islamophiles immediately and desperately attempt to find any connections
whatsoever between that critic and the EDL (or with other 'far-right'
groups) which, they believe, will automatically invalidate all of their
arguments against Islam. Nonetheless, citing EDL – or any – connections
are, in the end, nothing less than tarted-up examples of the ad hominem argument. A former public schoolboy (he's an old boy of Merchant Taylors' School)
like Mehdi Hasan should know that. So it doesn't help either that after
making much – very much! – of Douglas Murray's supposed EDL
connections, he then informs us about Murray's connections with Jihad
Watch's Robert Spencer – all for good measure. Yes! More smears from
Hasan and more hypocrisy from Hasan.One of the lowest points of Mehdi Hasan's article is when he uses the
word 'fascist' about Murray's views and then the soundbite 'far-right'
to describe Robert Spencer. And this man has the audacity to talk about
smears? This man also often talks about his critics'
easy use of the word 'Islamist' when referring to his good self? Again,
what a hypocrite!The irony is that in order to fight against these 'fascists',
'racists' and 'Islamophobes', Mehdi Hasan is quite willing to use
fascistic words and fascistic political measures to do so – as Leftists
very often do! That is, he mentioned the banning of Robert Spencer from
the UK, which I presume he endorses. I also assume he either wants to
ban the EDL or impose the infamous 'no platform policy' on the group.
This is a policy which Leftists – often the same ones at different
times – sometimes do and sometimes don't endorse. It all depends on how
well their public arguments are going on their controversial demand that
'the oppressive capitalist State' censor politically incorrect views
and ban non-conformist movements.

Predictably, I suppose, Mehdi Hasan tackles the infamous video in which he calls all non-Muslims - or, as he puts it, "kaffar" - nothing less than 'cattle'. (Though he does so only because Douglas
Murray had referred to it.) Clearly these comments on the video are
aimed at his fans. That is, they are aimed at the people who read the
'progressive' Huffington Post and who are already sympathetic
to his politics and causes. What I mean is that most of them won't check
the video to see for themselves if Hasan's denials are actually true.Like so many other people, I found Mehdi Hasan's arrogant and smug
words repulsive. (Hasan is arrogant and smug most of the time. What do
you expect from an ex-public schoolboy?) But they didn't repulse me half
as much as his later claims that all his critics took his words 'out of
context'! Ah! That old chestnut – out of context. You
know, as in all the negative and violent passages in the Koran always
being cited 'out of context'. That's strange. Have you noticed that the
positive Koranic passages (of which there are few) are always quoted in context? To be accurate, Muslims never mention the 'necessary context' required for any citation of the positive passages.What does context – if only in this case – actually mean anyway? The
video makes it crystal clear what Hasan is saying because he says it
plainly and unequivocally. What possible context could he be referring
to? Is he referring to the context in which his despicable and arrogant
comments about "kaffar" will be miraculously transformed into
words of Islamic love, peace and deep cuddles for all non-Muslims? Do you
really believe in such miracles?And, no, the Koran doesn't use the word 'cattle' in a metaphorical
way, as Hasan claims. However, I suppose it's evidently metaphorical in
the strict sense that not even Muhammad could have believed that all kuffar are literally
cattle. But that doesn't matter in the slightest! Comparing people to
cattle - or saying they are like cattle - is equally bad and
reprehensible. In fact, come to think of it, since the Koran and
Muhammad, Muslims have stated that Christians and Jews are descended from pigs.
(The more sophisticated version is that Christians were descended from
pigs and Jews from apes.) So maybe Hasan was being literal after all!In addition to all that, there's no evidence whatsoever which shows
that Hasan was also aiming his comments at Muslims, as he claims. (For
example, he refers to "atheists". Can Muslims be atheists?) Of course,
even if the video doesn't shown that his comments were also aimed at
Muslims, Hasan can still claim that this was nonetheless the case
because it's impossible to prove otherwise. In other words, Mehdi Hasan
is dissimulating again. Something he does most of the time.The simple fact is that Mehdi Hasan has to distance himself from the
video. He wouldn't have survived as the Official Voice of All
Muslims (along with 'Mo' Ansar) if that were not the case. So even if he
still, in his Islamic heart, agrees with the entirety of what he said
about kaffar on that video ('in context' or out of context), he
could never admit to it. In any case, it's obvious that he would have
had no idea at the time that this video would eventually go viral on
YouTube. (Perhaps he didn't even know or realise it was being taped.)Nonetheless, just in case some of you think it was a one-off and
insist on giving all people – even Mehdi Hasan – the benefit of the
doubt, there are another two videos in which Hasan refers to non-Muslims
as "animals", etc. (Click here to see them.) It's also ironic that Hasan refers to Anjem Choudary –
the UK's famous firebrand Islamist – in this article when he himself
outshines Choudary in crudity and bigotry in these videos. As British
television viewers will be well aware, Hasan's also a far better actor/
performer – primarily due, no doubt, to his public school training –
than the dreary Choudary. It's interesting too that even though Hasan
is a 'progressive' – or Leftist – Shia Muslim, he can't resist having a go at the Sunni "Islamic Republic of Pakistan", as he puts it, in one of the videos.Hasan also claims that it's an "ancient speech". Is 2009 ancient?
It's not if you compare to the truly ancient speech of Douglas Murray,
from 2006, which Hasan quotes in this very article. I'm afraid Hasan is
being hypocritical again.And on those ancient speeches of Douglas Murray, Mehdi Hasan snidely
comments that Anjem Choudary could also say "I was angry" (as Murray
said about his earlier speeches) about some of the things he has said.
Maybe – but he wouldn't! I doubt that Choudary would ever explain – let
alone apologise for – anything he has said as an Islamist. In fact he
never has so far. Instead Choudary has correctly claimed that everything
he says is completely Islamic and in line which much – if not all –
Islamic teachings and texts. In fact Choudary may be somewhat jealous of
Hasan's 'cattle' speech and its notoriety.

------

What Mehdi Hasan actually said on the 'cattle' video:

"The kaffar, the disbelievers, the atheists who remain deaf and
stubborn to the teachings of Islam, the rational message of the Quran;
they are described in the Quran as, quote, 'a people of no
intelligence'. Allah describes them as – not of no morality, not as
people of no belief – people of 'no intelligence' because they're
incapable of the intellectual effort it requires to shake off those
blind prejudices, to shake off those easy assumptions about this world,
about the existence of God. In this respect, the Quran describes the
atheists as 'cattle', as cattle of those who grow the crops and do not
stop and wonder about this world."

So perhaps the following is the 'true context' to what Hasan said:

The
People of the Book - the people of restricted belief, the dialectical
and Marxist materialists who are not informed about the teachings of
Islam, the rational message of the Quran - they are described in the
Quran as, quote, "people who haven't been the beneficiaries of dawa".
Allah describes them as, not of no morality, not as people of no belief
– but people of "a sceptical nature" because they haven't been
allowed - in their secular and democratic societies - to add to their
beliefs, to add to their scientific assumptions about this
world, the truths and values of Islam and the glory of Allah. In this
respect, the Quran describes the people of restricted belief as "unfortunate people", as unfortunate people who go to night-clubs and
university lectures but who never experience the virtues and pleasures
of studying Islam and the Koran.

1 comment:

Hasan is a disseminater of the highest order. I saw him on a TV debate programme in which his reply to a poll that 70% of Muslim men between the ages of 16-24 wanted homosexuality to be criminalised was "go to any pub around here and you will get the same opinion". Well I know he believes in winged horses and that a man split the moon in two but I am beginning to suspect that he can time travel! Yes the view that homosexuality should be a criminal offense probably was the opinion of most men in pubs in 1940 but in 2015? No way. Anyway what is a good Muslim like Hasan even doing going into the Kaffir's unclean alcohol selling pubs in the first place? He is a liar of the first order and should not be trusted.